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SORTING MY BROTHER’S THINGS

Sit.
Stay, Think as Prayer

Going
through on a rainy day,Drawers, stacks of boxes ofModel cars,
cabinets full ofCanned goods,Shirts, coats on
hangars,Photographs from years,Back, like turning back a
clock,Though time in reality,Has in years moved upTo now—

On a couch I sit,Space is open,My mind in river’sFlow—I am in a kind of mirage,A story of fantasy,Imagined,Sleep could easy free meBut then awake I find meHere and stillBreathing easy…So.

Photo of my brother as a child.

Gayle
Bluebird (Apr.’19) adds, “Death
is not just the act of dying, the presence of the person taking
flight as if in a dream to a new place we call Heaven. It is also the
taking apart a life in files, drawers filled with papers, the
looking at old letters even those written by yourself. It is a
wonder: mo-ments of discovering truth, be-coming close to parts of a
person you didn’t know. Then there is the decision which things to
take with you. All of these moments have emotions attached. In
becoming closer to the brother I did not know well, I struggled with
what of his to keep. Most things I carried away in my heart.